Fire Catching Fire
by ConstellationxSirius
Summary: Gale was always fire, this much is true. Though a destructive force, fire warms, protects, and helps to preserve life. When Katniss' life needs protecting, Gale's fire can help her.  Part one of several.
1. The Reaping

"Primrose Everdeen."

Effie Trinket smiled at the name with her head held high, oblivious to the consternation and anger bubbling up from the crowd.

_'No,'_ was the only thought in Gale Hawthorne's head as he swiveled around to search for Katniss, just locking in on her as her eyes rolled back in her head and she nearly toppled over. Gale wasn't even thinking about Prim in her helpless youth, slowly shuffling in disbelief to the makeshift stage where she would be "congratulated" by Effie Trinket. Gale was only thinking of one person, of Katniss Everdeen – for he could predict what happened next.

"I volunteer!" Katniss screamed above the murmuring crowd, pushing through the lines of children that were organized in pens as if for slaughter. "I volunteer!" she screamed, now reaching where Prim was and pushing the child protectively behind her. "I will take her place," she said, gathering her courage and putting on a resolute calm forced for the cameras.

Effie Trinket's utterly confused visage would have been laughable in any other situation. Collecting herself swiftly, she laughed and said, "That usually comes after we introduce the tribute, but I suppose under these circumstances…"

And that was all Gale heard, for his ears were ringing too badly for concentration, and his eyes blacked out. He managed to keep his balance somehow and though his sight returned slowly, he could feel a thousand eyes trained on him. Everybody in District 12 knew how close Katniss and Gale were to each other. He had no word for what they were, and he has labored tirelessly to try to find it. In the beginning it was a simple definition; hunters, traders, protectors. Then they became friends. About six months ago, the definition got a little hazy…

His senses returned just in time to see Effie Trinket's hand swirling around in a large container that resembled a fish bowl. Katniss stood firmly in what would pass for a good semblance of courage to anyone who did not know her as well as Gale knew her. With a flourish Effie Trinket chose and read a boy's name aloud; with a spark of recognition he heard the name Mellark. The baker's son. His father pays well for squirrels when his awful wife isn't home. He saw the boy around school occasionally, for theirs was a small district, but never met him.

Gale looked at Peeta's muscular frame and thought the baker's body was built well for the circumstances and thought he might do well in the Games, despite the copious tears sliding down his face. Gale wondered for a moment if it was all an act to win the Games by deceiving his opponents into believing he was weak. He didn't spend much time debating the issue, because it didn't matter.

Peeta Mellark could never win the Hunger Games. He would never even have a chance.

Gale raised his voice loudly over the crowd so that not a single person would mistake his words, "I volunteer."

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><p><em>Comment and let me know if you like it and if I should continue. This is a little short because it's to set up the story. Thanks for reading!<em>


	2. The Goodbye

_Here is another chapter because, well, I'm on break and I like this story and I didn't have a long one yesterday. Enjoy!_

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><p>'She probably hates me,' Gale thought as he was led through the Justice Building for the second time in his life; how appropriate that the Tributes were held here, in the same building Gale received a medal after his father's death. Now for the Hawthorne family it would hold memories of two family tragedies. <p>

A door closed behind him and he sat down solemnly, feeling very numb. He felt almost as if his brain would have to thaw before he could work out any ideas, but decided numbness would be the best way to say goodbye to his family – to his mother and his younger brothers and to little Posy, all of which would have nobody to provide for them. But that isn't true. District twelve may be poor but they could survive for a couple months until their victor came home, some kind soul would help them here in the district – nobody would help Katniss in the arena, and that is why Gale volunteered. Katniss lived her whole life to protect her mother, to protect Prim; she deserves someone to protect her. 

But maybe that wasn't the only reason Gale was doing this. For as long as he could remember, for as long as he knew how to, Gale had hated the Capitol. He has seen children starved to the bone because of the immense poverty in the districts, he has seen people turned against each other in hard times, he has heard the stories of brutal Peacekeepers whipping insubordinate fathers for trying to find sustenance in the woods. He has ranted and yelled and screamed in the woods because it is the only place that will not punish him with death for voicing his opinions. In some small way that makes no sense but merely _feels _right, Gale believes this could be his way of getting back at the Capitol. They use the Hunger Games to punish and humiliate a generation that has done nothing to oppose them except exist. Somehow, Gale will find a way to oppose the Capitol on national television, and cause the Games to blow up in their faces. He owes it to Rory, and Posy, and Vick, and Prim, and every other child in Panem. And for all it's worth, he owes it to himself. He will no longer be a scared teenager yelling to the birds in the woods doing nothing to make a difference beside scaring off game. 

His family shuffled in solemnly, hugging him through the tears. Little Posy's lip quivered and Rory tried to look brave. "I'll look after them while you're gone," Rory said and his voice broke on the last word. Gale's lips twitched up gently in a half smile, and clasped his brother on the shoulder. The numbness was wearing off but he could not afford tears – he had to be intimidating to get through the Games. He was about the age Gale was when they first lost their father, and Rory would have to take Gale's place as caretaker, despite his lack of hunting prowess. Gale had faith in him, but he would never forgive himself for not keeping his promise to keep his family safe. But he had to do this, not just for Katniss – but for himself. 

All too soon their ten minutes was over. Gale touched Posy's cheek as she was carried away, patted his brothers on the shoulder, kissed his mother's cheek. They would pull through, they have before. 

Next Katniss' mother and Prim visited him, both with weary looks on their faces; they had probably just visited Katniss. It was unusual for another tribute's family to visit the opposition, but in this case it was completely expected. Katniss and Gale were best friends, and Gale had been helping to provide for the Everdeen family for years. Their mother's were friends. Gale repeated what he assumed Katniss told Prim about her goat; he didn't have to worry though, everyone in district twelve loved Prim – she would never go hungry if she had even the most remote thing to sell. He asked Mrs. Everdeen to make sure his brothers and sister never signed up for tesserae unless it was certain they would starve to death without it – and even so, a death of starvation must be desired over death in an arena on national television. 

Too quickly, their time was over too. He was surprised when Greasy Sae stopped by, and likewise surprised when even Madge came – whom he had insulted mere hours before the Reaping. But never was he as surprised as when the baker came. In retrospect it shouldn't have been so surprising, Gale did volunteer for his son, and they had even created a sort of rapport, trading squirrels in private. He didn't say a word when he handed over a tin of beautifully decorated cookies, but as he exited, he said quietly, almost inaudibly, "Thank you." 

A depressing parade of crying girls entered and exited the room, a bath of tears washing his face clean for the cameras as they covered him in wet kisses. Never staying for longer than a minute, some of the girls he barely remembered, had not spoken to in ages, but they wept as if he was their lover going off to war. '_Katniss wouldn't have acted like this,' _Gale thought wryly, picturing an alternate reaping where Katniss was safe from the Hunger Games and one of his own forty-two slips was called. And he was right; Katniss would have stayed strong, told him she expected to have him home within a few months and that she would feed his family until then. There would be no goodbyes, she would mean what she said – she would expect to see him on the Victor's Tour. 

But unfortunately, that wasn't the state of things, and only one person can come back from the Hunger Games alive. 

Gale wanted to speak with Katniss and assess the damage he caused by volunteering, but he didn't know when he would get the chance. He only knew what the cameras told him, and from here on there was typically only footage of the tributes walking out of the Justice Building; are the tributes kept in separate areas? He knew they stood next to each other in the parade and interviews, but would that be his only chance to talk to her? A few moments while he was in the public eye? 

His curiosity did not last long, for once he was led from his private room he and Katniss were walked to a train together. Barely looking at her he could sense the hostility emanating from her in waves. He decided their conversation was probably better left for when they were not on television, though a fight between tributes would probably make them appear tougher… 

He decided to wait; Katniss definitely needed some time to calm down and Gale was very patient. They would have a lot of time together before the Games. 

Boarding the train he was led to a private room down the hall from Katniss. His room was large and fully equipped with a large bathroom with lots of buttons and most importantly, running water. And not only running water, _warm _running water. Gale could only imagine how calm and _clean _he could become after a bath in this thing. But Gale decided that it could wait until morning, he had something much more important to settle first. He opened the door slowly, walked longingly across the room, and fell face first onto the bed. He was fast asleep within minutes.

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><p><em>Review if you like where this is going, thanks for reading!<em>


	3. The Train

Gale slowly wakes pleasantly to fading rays of sun warming his face. Eyes half open he stretches on the soft bed of moss he fell asleep on, and half regards a pair of bird's eyes staring at him in the darkness from several feet away. He half-heartedly chastised himself for falling asleep in the woods until nightfall again but then remembers with a start the events of the past few hours. Opening his eyes, in place of the bird he thought he saw earlier were two angry orbs glowering at him from the shadows.

This had to happen sooner or later.

Gale sat up reluctantly and immediately was assailed with insults. "How could you? Do promises mean nothing to you? What are our families supposed to do now?" Katniss began, nowhere near the end of her belligerent questioning. "Do you remember what you told me less than a day ago? You told me we could run away together into the woods. Do you even remember my reaction?" It was true. Less than a day ago Gale had told her, faintly and in a hopeless plea, that they could do it. They could disappear into the woods and live the remainder of their lives out of the Capitol's grasp. Of course, she was completely against the idea – refusing to abandon Prim with only their mother to support her, but Gale had actually meant it, despite the idea of leaving his own family behind. He knew now that Katniss was extremely relieved by her decision to stay, for otherwise, who would have volunteered for Prim? But the idea of escaping in the woods and leaving everyone behind sat easily with Gale in the woods, and it sat easily when it meant volunteering to go into the Games to protect Katniss.

Gale knew, however, that if he relayed this sentiment to Katniss, she would never forgive him. However, he was never the type to lie, no matter how bad the truth sounded.

"It didn't seem like I was breaking a promise," Gale said evenly. "It felt like I was fulfilling another one. The one I made with myself when I accepted you as my hunting partner though you were young and weak and still too loud to sneak up on a deaf rabbit." Her eyes still flashed dangerously.

"This was never about me! " she shouted into the dark. "It was about Prim, the reason I hunted all those hours and all those years and the reason I'm sitting next to you on this stupid Capitol train. With nobody left at home to take care of her, I might as well have let her go off to these Games, because at least then she'd die quickly instead of the slow, starving death you've sentenced her to by abandoning her when she needed it most."

Gale kept his eyes locked firmly on Katniss, fire flashing behind his eyes now. "Do you think I'm stupid enough to risk my life in that arena if I really thought I couldn't get you back alive?" Gale said harshly, resentment coloring his tone in an angry mask. "You're going to get back to District-" but he doesn't get to finish his sentence, because just then a loud knock reverberates through the room and Effie Trinket comes bouncing into the room without an invitation.

"Up, up, up! It's going to be a big, big, big day!" she says brightly in her weird Capitol accent and I have to smile at Katniss. It is not returned, though the fire behind her eyes is gone. Effie turns on the lights and jumps in mock surprise, "Two tributes! Excellent!" she says, looking absolutely delighted but a little out of sorts. I go ahead and assume that she's never seen two tributes from one district speaking together so intimately before – though the argument she walked in on was far from intimate. "I'm here to bring you to dinner," she says cheerily.

'_If this is what they call dinner in the Capitol, I'd like to see what they call a feast,' _Gale thinks with wide eyes, as he takes in the mounds of food on the table. He steals a look at Katniss before remembering that she hates him right now, but even she can't contain her surprise at all the food. Out of all of district twelve, the Everdeens and the Hawthornes probably eat the best out of most of the inhabitants, save for the merchants, Peacekeepers, and politicians, but this is something else entirely. The quantity alone would probably feed Gale's family of five for at least a month, but the _quality. _Mushroom soup, greens, peas, roast beef, noodles in a green sauce, cheese, blue grapes, and beyond that more food that he didn't even know the name of. Come to think about it, there was probably _too much _food and they were sure to run out of names for all of it.

Gale thinks for a moment that he may start to drool.

Piling his plate with some of everything, Gale hardly realizes when a dirty man he recognizes from previous Games as Haymitch Abernathy slides into a seat at the table. Too hungry to make notice, Gale picks up his knife and fork and wishes for a moment that he could inhale food. He stops briefly and thinks wryly that the only reason the Capitol is feeding him in such a way is to fatten him up to keep up the charade that Panem is not the starving place it is, only providing entertainment for the well fed Capitol citizens. Gale thinks better of it, deciding the he will need as much weight as he can to stay alive and keep Katniss alive, and also that the food is too alluring to resist.

"At least you two have decent manners!" Effie bursts out as if we're best friends and she's confessing a secret that's been bottling up in her for ages. "The pair last year ate everything with their hands like a couple of savages. It completely upset my digestion," she says affectedly as she dabs at her face with her napkin. Pointedly I hear Katniss slam her utensils on the table and proceed to eat her food with her hands, slurping loudly. Thinking on the two tributes from last year, Seam kids that probably went days without food back at home despite the tesserae they undoubtedly each took out, Gale decides to follow suit and commits completely by dipping his hand in his soup and pulling out the chunks of chicken. Katniss smiles at him appreciatively. Effie Trinket's lips immediately sour like she drank lemon juice and she glares over her thick pink eyelashes. The meal proceeds in a stark silence contrasted by the previous chatter Effie had been providing regarding the Hunger Games and food and interviews and just about everything else. The only sound other than Katniss' loud chewing and slurping is the occasional swig from a canteen presumably where their mentor, Haymitch Abernathy, sat.

Gale starts when he receives a sharp kick under the table and thinks to himself that he did nothing to presently deserve this assailment. Gale glares at Katniss but she doesn't look at him with anger, but with a question. He follows her eyes across the room.

There she stands refilling glasses in a tidy uniform, short and unremarkable but with a shock of unquestionably familiar red hair. "Hey, I know you!" Katniss says loudly across the table as a question, as if she cannot remember from where. Immediately their eyes meet, and the red-haired girl is filled with what can only be described as fear, and immediately Gale remembers where they know her from.

"You can't possibly know her," Effie says with derision, a hint of anger still in her voice from Gale and Katniss' pointed table manner _faux pas_. "She's an avox. A traitor." A look sideways at Katniss and Gale sees that she remembers where we know her from as well; she remembers that regular day in the woods when they saw a young girl with red hair running for her life next to a boy that Gale assumed to be her boyfriend. Running from something they were, for moments later a hovercraft appeared before them, and the boy was killed and the girl disappeared – but not before she saw Gale and Katniss, not before she made her silent plea for help, and certainly not before the two hunters did nothing to help her. The two hunters that let her be captured and become a slave and the two hunters that let her boyfriend die. There was probably nothing the two of them could have done to help, and only would have gotten arrested themselves for the trouble, but the act of doing nothing never sat well with him, and he doubted it sat well for Katniss.

Gale searched frantically for an escape, because though they could not be held accountable for anything illegal regarding this woman except trespassing in the woods, it may cause trouble for the avox and it seemed…_private, _in a way. "I know who you're thinking of," Gale said, feigning a recognition while looking at the wide eyed girl. "She looks exactly like Leevy, from back at home." Katniss gave him a weird look but immediately embraced the suggestion.

"Yes, that's it. She looks exactly like her, I bet it was the hair," Katniss says gratefully. This young girl looks nothing like Leevy, Katniss' neighbor with long black hair and gray eyes. Forgetting her anger completely as is befitting the fickle Effie Trinket, she returns to idly chattering about parades and interviews and other nonsense, and Gale sits back in his chair. This is when he takes his first real notice of his mentor, Haymitch Abernathy. He appears to be laughing to himself under his breath and Gale remembers idly that Haymitch probably knows or at least would recognize Leevy – given that everyone knows everyone in district twelve. He either doesn't care or is too drunk to care because he doesn't say anything about it and nobody else seems to notice his silent laughter.

Gale continues to eat, but feels slightly unsettled about the whole affair.

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><p><em>Thanks for making it this far, I hope you stick with this story! <em>_I love reviews, so if you've got a comment or suggestion, I really do try to keep them in mind while I'm writing the next chapter. Thanks again!_


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